FAME IS THE NAME OF THE GAME

Fame is the Name of the Game is a podcast series exploring the various relationships between celebrities and audiences. Each episode is hosted in collaboration with a guest and aims to give space to 'not so' famous people to discuss their singular experience of celebrity culture. As the guests share part of their stories on tape, they bring in anecdotes and examples to illustrate their relationship with celebrities, the good, the bad, and the mad…

EP1: 
Brooke Collum is a child of the Internet. As a 25-year-old emerging creative director from New York, she reflects on her definition of celebrity. A conversation about unhealthy relationships with social media, the 'pedestal of fame', and authenticity online. This is Fame is the Name of the Game.

EP2:
It was sex, drugs, alcohol, and Rock N Roll. A conversation about the evolution of role models, being the face of a business, and the pressure to achieve success. Neto shares his 30 years of experience as an event organiser in the art world. This is Fame is the Name of the Game.

ABSTRACT: 
Social media apps such as Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok, increasingly facilitated access to celebrities, closing the gap between the ‘ordinary’ individual and
the ‘extraordinary’ celebrity, thus shifting the nature of their relationship.
Consequently, the mediated visibility of celebrities online placed fame as a marker of value and success, which reverberated onto audiences. This research will investigate the consequences of this increasing celebrity exposure across social media platforms. Additionally, this paper will explore the changing nature of celebrity over time and the different ways social media users make sense of fame, now in the Digital Age.

The data for this project was collected through semi-structured interviews conducted with participants from opposing age groups, Generation Z and X. Those
conversations have been recorded and distributed in the form of a podcast series made up of three episodes, called Fame is the Name of the Game.

The effects discussed in this project include a changed perception of success, a desire for attention and recognition, as well as a growing need to expose an online
public self. Other themes covered in this research were participants’ online behaviours and usage of social media platforms.

These findings indicate the negative impacts of such exposure on audiences, resulting in the public feeling pressured to seek validation and attention online, as
they become unhealthily self-critical and apply ‘celebrity expectations’ to their own lives.

podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/fame-is-the-name-of-the-game/id1627286764